Recent DJ Posts

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid FA / AP

Visiting an asylum in a castle during the victorian era. I accidentally step into the dungeons and encounter some weird looking bald grey skin people who surround me and say mysterious things like I am the chosen one. I just run away to daylight, feeling very uncomfortable. I am a rich young attractive man, looking very much like Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula. The ladies all look at me drooling, but I am very chaste and not actually interested. I am also very weirded out by what just happened. Then some tall bulky bald man, also with a weird pale skin and a tall hat stares at me as he walks past me. I hear him in my head whispering something like "soon" and "you have been chosen" and I see visions of myself in a near future as a vampire. I actually feel seducted with the idea.
I still try not to be followed by this guy as the night falls. There is some nocturnal parade and many policemen on the streets and I am kinda forced to enter a park and end up by a lake that is restricted access. Some policemen see me and tell me to get out. So I see myself again in the parade area and stuck in the middle of a group of noisy teenagers. I try to get away by entering a perpendicular street leading to a parallell road and walking it in the opposite direction. On the other road, the sidewalk is too narrow and the road is too busy, so I spot an old fashion mall that I know can be crossed into another street so I go in.
I am myself again and I meet some familiar faces at the food court sharing a table. Namely there's Evangelion, whom I don't see for ages and he tells me to sit down at his side. We are packed really tight, but that was his intention all along. He flirts with me and I enjoy it. He says he missed me and would like to be with me somewhere alone right now. The others hear it and laugh, but he is serious. He suggests I follow him and I ask if he is taking me for a quickie in the public restroom but he doesn't get the sarcasm in my voice, Instead he answers that he has a better idea. There is some sort of rental rooms over the mall and despite all being taken he has some friends staying there and he hopes to get a room for free. He kinda does. Some friend is packing to check out soon and says we can enjoy the room for a while while she goes do something outside. I feel embarassed with all this, but I am also horny and want to be with him so I play along. As I get in bed he disappears for a while and when he comes back he has turned into a horny pimpled chubby pre-teenager and I wonder what the hell happened. He says he can't control it when he feels horny, he just becomes his younger self. He gets in bed and I say no way. Not only I'd be in trouble if I am found in bed with a minor, he also looks terribly unnatractive. He also can't contain himself and he is already literally covered in cum. I point it out and he is like "so what"? I am disgusted. Then my mom and a bunch other people just barge into the bedroom and they are shocked. My mom asks what am I doing and why. I try to lie and say it's nothing of what they think it is. I am actually still dressed under the sheets so I get up and say I was just taking a nap and this kid snuck in and got too excited. But they actually know it's Evangelion and know he is actually an adult and that that is not the problem. So I tell him to get back to his current self and he goes to the toilet and says he'll be back soon. When he does he is back into his tall adult self. I introduce him to mom and the others and they are all very nice and cordial and say we don't need to be embarassed. But I feel a bit puzzled and want to know what the problem is after all that they all barged in on us. Turns out that my mom thought I have been too libertine and worries that I go to bed with every guy.

15th January 2022

Fragment:

Something with Gandalf? Using some kind of shared mental projection technique that allows us to scout some place ahead. First, indoors, a place with white walls and vaulted ceilings (how big?). Blue-ish light, indirect sunlight-like. We walk, still as projections, outside. There's a mish mash of a castle and some house thing. It looks familiar and I'm sure I've seen it before, some awareness or perhaps false memory of having seen it in another dream.

Then we knock at some door? A man, sort of fantasy-like and a little fat, answers the door.

Something at some point about H's sister.

(recall was weak)


17th January 2022

Fragment:

Somewhat Victorian place or setting. Cobbled streets in a city. Several different characters. I'm naked and aroused at one point. Someone male interacting with me and trying to convince me of something. Later, a hearth and a fire in a house. I'm naked but under a duvet or something I wrap myself in.

(recall was good, but lost it because of the radio; I vaguely recall this dream visually even now and it had a bit of a grungy feel to it)


18th January 2022

Scraps:

Looking in recycling bags and seeing the wrong things in either of them.


21st January 2022

Fragment:

At old home, daytime. Unusual setting, with implied state of anarchy or non-normality.

There's some kind of animosity between white and black people. I have some hope that people will just get along. People have handguns and shotguns. At one point I'm in a flat, looking for stuff, and I have a stand-off with a teenager. (seen in a sort of isometric third person view) I also feel like I'm a teen. We both have handguns and shoot at each other once, I hit him and he misses me. He dies and I dislike the fact that it was necessary to shoot him at all, only firing in self defence, I feel.

Later, some WoW bit with choosing a sub-faction even though I'm already Alliance.

12/1/20

I am at a school lock-in at a large period style manor with my old classmates.
I saw her dressed in an all black victorian style dress walking calmly, standing out in the crowd she is graceful and glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.
We walk by each other, I notice her notice me but I do not acknowledge her as I walk slowly with my hands behind my back. I don't see her again.
I am with a group of guys who look like power lifters wearing singlets. We are all cutting up laughing.
We put wigs on and joke loudly about starting a strip club, girls line up for us to jokingly grind on them while trapy thump music plays in the background.
The joke gets old.

It's time for bed and we're all herded into different rooms. They are large dormitory style rooms only the beds are also large, some have several pillows on them.
I don't see any open beds really so I sleep at the foot of one of the large beds.
They are all kids now, I am unsure if I am also a kid.
Another kid lays down next to me unaware there are pillow positions.
I ask him if he wants the other bed next to us, he says no, I am fine with it and fall asleep anyway.
In the morning time the old nanny-like ladies are waking us up
We are all standing around them as the introductions are happening. There are laminated numbers hanging from the ceiling. I gather we will be here for a few weeks.
The room starts to rotate and I see out the windows a line of coloured small circus style tents outside that the african american boys were sleeping in.
I think I want to sleep outside the next night as the segregation is totally unfair.
I look and most of the boys inside are african american too, I am confused.
The caretaker (who looks like Paterson Joseph) outside tells us while standing on a ladder that this place has history and our water comes from the creek which has had slaves shitting in it for centuries and we should feel lucky to have this history in our water.
We are all sprayed at once to shower and brush our teeth. I continued brushing my teeth after and am scolded by one of the nannies.
The morning chores begin
I am the oldest one so I am unsure what to do and wander around. They are preparing food in the kitchen so I offer to cut stuff up. Everyone is using their hands instead of utensils and all the counters are cutting boards.
He hands me a few slices of pineapple to dice. I take them to a station and grab a knife. The blade has been bent twisted sideways so it is not straight holding the handle. I cut them up anyway.
Walking around more they are spreading new concrete/floor sealer in one of the rooms and a boy is being charged with the activity with two adult guardians.
The older guys tell me they do this every 2 days or so. The kid does a horrible job spreading as the coloured dye on top doesn't swirl right and they bash him for it.
I tell the guys I am massage therapist and kind of the all around guy so I can do many things.
One of them asks me about a rumour he heard about Massage therapists having all the right words to sell their craft but their skill is sometimes lacking. I go in on the topic of there being too many therapists in my state so there are plenty who don't take their practice seriously. He tells me he can tell I am smart one and we should get along just fine.

I am in a cooking competition like master chef. Another stressful one. It is the first challenge and we are tasked with making a dish that describes us, we only have 45 minutes. We can only use the ingredients we brought with us. I wanted to braise some pork but don't have the time. I am standing next to that one bald guy with glasses and neck tattoos. Everyone is far more experienced than I am. He mentions going across the street to get some ingredients and asks if I need anything, I still haven't decided what I will cook and spend most of my time brainstorming. My box is full of frozen meat and reminds me of my deep freeze. No time to dethaw. I end up cooking some small chicken pieces that were marinaded. There is a small garnish station set up so I make a small salad like garnish on the side. I remember I have some rice as well and make a fried spanish rice in a cup form next to my chicken slices on a long plate with the leafy greens on the end. Gordon yells at me for making a salad. This is the worst meal I have made in my entire life. I am ashamed. There are maybe 20 people all at their desks in the competition. A kid who only got one vegetable on his plate ends up going home. I am relieved but still believe I am the worst one here.

Snipers pin down me and some kids at a hilly mountainous home.
Drama drama drama
A mounty looking navy seal guy shows up and I task him with helping us.
He sees the snipers and throws me his huge binoculars.
I hold a 4 wheeler while he starts it on a hill to go to a better vantage point.
He dies a gorey death sliding down a skiing lift cable, gets cut in half and his upper half lands on top of a cooked hog sitting on a picnic table. He screams the whole way.

Things wind down and the house is now a run down hillbilly home with just 2 somewhat disabled people living in it.
I walk down the driveway and they have a vendors tent set up selling only various types of plastic pencils. One of them looks like an ice cream cone and I ask if this is the only edible one.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening

In Victorian times, I am spending some time at some kind of resort in the mountains. They have a kind of cinema complex but it is actually several small rooms, very cozy, with sofas, for very private screenings of only a half a dozen people. There is a table with tea and coffee for self-serving. Oh, and I am famous. I just had to run away with my friends to reach the room (nr 10) that we had booked, while being chased by curious fans.

At the set of a movie. Something historic. Being filmed in a big building where the story actually happened in RL. It is the first day of shootings and the actors and dozens of extras are getting into their places for a rehearsal. But I have no clue about my character. I got an envelope with papers with that info but there is no time to read it. I go from room to room asking people to help me out, but the team of directors and other professionals are so busy they don't even care. I find a room which seems like a courtroom with people seated and decide to sit in the back and read the papers. They say my main character is Caribbean and my name is N'iogo Kagada. That makes no sense at all and I talk to someone in front of me who also finds it absurd. Then I read further and it says my actual name given by my parents is Karen Vans, but I adopted a new name and nationality later on. Still doesn't make much sense. I also don't have the script and don't know where to stand and what are my lines.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening

At my mom's apartment, something happens and I need to escape. I run for the door and in the stairway I jump all floors through the empty space in middle of the stairs. I expect the chasers not to be able to do so and gain some time with that. But it is one of those recurrent dreams I have in which the ground floor has no exit to the outside and I just hide in one apartment that had the door open and a key inside. I lock the door behind me and look for a window. I find an enclosed balcony but then I open a window and jump, just to find I am inside another balcony and this repeats several times until I decide to control the dream and focus that when I exit the window I am really outside. Funny though, I am back on the top floor and not ground floor, but I fly away and hide behind nearby buildings so my chasers don't see me in the distance. Then I fly to the mountains nearby. I reach them at dusk and find a weird place covered in stone ruins and some people walking among them, like pilgrims, they don't seem dangerous, but they all are a bit mad. They let me be, but some are a bit too curious and pushy and I need to stay flying above them because I don't feel comfortable when they approach me.

Then I am with Zilla and some other friend on a cruiseship, when we're hit by a huge storm. The ship gets dragged to the coast, enters a canal, ends up in the city of some foreign country. We are in our cabin, getting dressed to go out. It's night and it is a hostile place, but we chose to leave the ship and hide on land. We hide on some hill and we are found by a couple enemy guys. They are armed and I make a bit of a theatre that we are "defenseless confused little girls so please don't shoot us". Instead, they decide to have fun with us. One of them, a big guy, gets on top of me, but I punch him in the throat, then kick his balls, slightly slide down through his legs and apply all my force to throw him over my head and we manage to escape them.

Then we are ok and safe and visiting a museum related to the Catholic church and full of Victorian things and morbid things related to death, all in silver and lots of lace and velvet. There is a section with a dead mummified dog in an exquisite coffin. It smells like a crypt.

Me and the girls have settled at a home and we are living in peace. But one day we hear strange noises and we think we saw some guy moving around the house. Suddenly a very old police car stops at our door but the cops are dressed as prisoners with striped jumpsuits. We first suspect of them but they say they came to protect us as they claim to have followed a hired assassin that came to kill us and then we believe them.

non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening


Kind of working for some time travel agency, but we make lots of mistakes. Traveled to time of first long distance train travels with sleep cabins. At the second class carriages I cross path with some very dirty kids, one is by the window peeing himself apparently. A colleague of mine pops up from a portal but doesn't fully cross, just crosses his torso to deliver me a message but his seen by other people, who freak out, faint, well, mayhem.
Later I go to the time of the first cars. But they are still experimental and no one drives them yet. We forgot that detail and I appear driving one. A woman! Everybody is shocked and wants to stop me and ask me who I am. Uh oh, gotta go! But the car is so slow, some people could run after me. After a long chase I manage to hide from them and jump forward in time. In the 60s I find some lady getting rid of stuff on the sidewalk and I stop by and see books I grew up with and no longer have, some vintage toys and other real treasures hard to find nowadays in mint condition. I ask her if I can collect for charity but it is for me to take to the future. She agrees but she ain't so happy, says she doesn't want it to end up in the hands of the wrong people. That's her problem, anyway she was trashing it all.
Then some cute boy, like a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt stops by to see what I am doing. We talk, he starts helping me sort things out, always playing with me and being very funny. Then we find some sexy clothes in the stuff and he teases me about it. We start flirting with each other and we have a really good time.

This dream took place in some kind of large wooden shack. It was quite dark. *REDACTED* Sylar, another character from "Heroes", was raping her (Claire). This was an event I was "tasked" to prevent. He was doing this to her, but to my confusion, Claire seemed to be enjoying it. To my shame, I was turned on by the sight. *REDACTED* I traveled back in time. I closed my eyes and envisioned the shack in the past. I started "seeing" and hearing input from the past, while my senses from the present went dull and eventually disappeared. I was back in the shack, but before Claire and her female friend (?) arrived. I think I managed to convince them to leave. At some point in the dream, I remember thinking (or whispering "save the cheerleader, save the world", the show's catchphrase.

I somehow got into a fight with Sylar. I could freeze time, just as I was about to throw in a punch. I realized that if I unfroze time for too long, he would no doubt destroy me using one of his many powers. But if I kept it frozen, I could never defeat him, or escape. I decided to freeze and unfreeze time every second or so, so my fist approached his face bit my bit, but he was unable to use focus and use a power in the short timespan between "freezes". I hit him right in the face, and he was defeated. My allies came in, several men of whatever faction I was with. They congratulated me for my deeds, and apparently saving the world. I wasn't interested in the world, though - I was madly in love with Claire, and I wanted her to love me back. At this point, my behavior mirrored that of a character of a book I'm reading - Raoul from "The Phantom of the Opera". In true 19th century style, it was as if I expected her to have some kind of obligation to love me because I saved her. I spoke to Claire, who was also in the shack all of the sudden, standing by wooden workbench. She no longer looked like herself. I told her the truth, that I loved her and that's why I "saved" her. She just kind of nodded "uh huh", and that was it. I was heartbroken. I was mad, and I think I drew my sword in anger (it was a katana). One of the guys in the room was Asian in origin, so I noticed.

In the next scene, I was sitting in a chair, in an opulent Victorian palace. It was a celebration of my "heroics", because I had saved Claire and saved the world from evil while doing it. I was still in a foul mood. I cared more about conquering her heart than the world's safety. I stood up, and said "forgive me, friends". I took my swords (they were two golden ornamental swords, in a very unusual shape), and held them up while preparing to travel back in time. The idea I had in mind was vile, and beyond selfish. I would go back, but arrive just too late - when Sylar was already having his way with her. I would then save her, and in doing so she would see how much I loved her. I was prepared to allow her to get hurt and abused, just so she would love me. I was sitting again, still "casting the spell". I noticed Claire standing on my left with a few other people. I lowered my arms so she would not see me "cast". Much to my frustration, I failed to travel back in time. My ability simply refused to work. Begrudgingly, I accepted this outcome. As I started to wake up, I somehow felt like this story would have a happy ending still, and "knew" she would come to me and we'd somehow end up together after all.

Ritual: WTB 1am, WBTB 6-7am recording NLDs, woke 7:45am with DILD + FA.

NLD, "Sparked": Walking home at night. Someone drives past in a dark vehicle and I say, "Turn on your lights!" Then I feel embarrassed when I notice she is actually walking. She enters the apartment two doors ahead of mine. The door next to her place is open, and there are people just inside it who give the impression that they are workers, not residents. My bed is the first thing I see when I open the door of my apartment, and I'm pleased to see a large box on it. Oh good, that thing I ordered has arrived.

After looking through the first box and strewing its contents, plastic wrap and styrofoam all over my bed, I open a smaller box that has also arrived. It contains a speaker that I ordered. When I first pull it out of the packaging I am disappointed: the surface is surprisingly dirty. Is it just shelfworn, or did I get a refurbished one by mistake? I'll be annoyed in the latter case, since I thought I was ordering a new one. There is some molded styrofoam that seems like the original packaging, if that's any clue.

The speaker weighs almost nothing, and I remember that this is a special lightweight system. It's portability is limited by its size, however, at about 8x10 inches. The back of it consists of flaps are supposed to fold together in a clever way. As I go to remove the last of the styrofoam supports, something unusual happens inside my head, like an electrical disruption.

I remain calm and think I'd better tell my roommates about this in case it incapacitates me and I end up needing medical attention, so I say aloud: "Hey guys, something weird just happened to me. I felt a "pop," saw a flash of white light, and now in the back of my head I hear a tone that is steadily increasing in frequency."

"You need more sleep," someone suggested. He could be right, but I didn't see the relevance. I do want to go back to bed but I'll have to clear all the box mess off it first.

What was happening to me? I had a contextual clue, at least: "It happened when I touched the speaker for the first time." Perhaps the device had built up some kind of strange electrical charge that I had triggered?

All this time the tone was whining to higher and higher pitches, and I waited with curiosity and slight anxiety to see what would happen next. When it seemed like it had become so shrill that it would soon pass beyond my auditory range, all that happened was that I woke up.

Note: The other day I read about "exploding head syndrome." This might have been a minor instance of it! The "popping" sound and flash of light are apparently classic symptoms. This is only the second time I've experienced something like this.

DILD, "Victorian Gentleman": I'm at a computer trying to order something online. I don't recall what it was, but the cost was over $200. There were some complicated webforms to navigate, and then after some difficulty finding my wallet, my credit card was missing. Meanwhile my stepmother-in-law comes over and offers to let me run her card instead. "No, no, no, no," I say quickly, trying to deter her, having just spotted mine on the table. Too late, she has already run her card and made the purchase. Well, that was nice of her, even if it wasn't what I would have asked for. I should show appreciation. I hug her and say, "Thank you."

Walking outside afterward, I have second thoughts. Was I rude to simply thank her? Maybe she hadn't intended the action as a gift. But even if she had, perhaps it would have been more polite of me to ask when she wanted me to pay her back, and that would give her the option to be magnanimous and say it wasn't necessary. But if she had assumed I would pay her back, wouldn't it be rude of her to create an extra hassle for me that I hadn't asked for? I had told her "no" and she did it anyway. I conclude that under the circumstances, my response was adequate and I should let it go.

As I walk back in the house, behind me I hear a man's voice, distinctively low and gravelly. It is really familiar. Who is that guy? I think he must live next door; I'm always hearing that voice. I sneak a look back before going in and spot him: he is older, gaunt, with straggly grey hair. I think he looks like an aging biker or a math professor (they can look more similar than you might think!)

I continue in the house and decide to repack my suitcase, which is in disarray, when it occurs to me... wait. I have the impression that I hear that man's voice all the time, but I suddenly suspect that I only hear it in dreams. Could this be a dream, then? I realize that it is. This gives me the confidence to go back outside and approach the guy, intending to find out who he is. I would not want to so brazenly walk up to a stranger in WL, but this is my dream so there is no reason to hesitate. As I step back through the door I find myself with handful of silver rings in my right hand that I am putting on the fingers of the left. Why did I grab so many? I'm going to have to put multiple rings on each finger to make them all fit.

Only one person is in sight now, a dapper gentleman in Victorian dress walking by from left to right. He has a neatly trimmed beard, a black frock coat, and a top hat. I've always been fascinated by that era, but in dreams I've never been successful in my attempts to meet historical figures. I wonder if he'll really acknowledge being from that time period. Maybe he's just dressing up?

I get his attention and ask, "Are you from the Victorian era?" He confirms it. I'm interested now so I start walking alongside him, suggesting, "Tell me about yourself." As he begins to reply, I look more closely at his face and realize that he is strikingly good-looking. On a whim I seize his arm and pull him off the road, then push him against the door of a nearby house and start kissing him, thinking meanwhile that in waking life I would never do this with a stranger. Though taken by surprise he responds willingly. The only thing marring the pleasure of the kiss is a little piece of fingernail in my mouth—I must have been biting them—and I try to move it with my tongue so it won't come into contact with his mouth, which would be awkward. During a break in the kissing I manage to swallow the bit of nail, and the gentleman never seems to notice.

After that interlude we continue together down the street. It's odd that I so quickly lost interest in my more intellectual inquiries and succumbed to mere erotic instinct... and annoying, in that I never did get to hear the DC's account of himself. My lucidity apparently faded quite a bit in the process (it was never very keen in this dream), because it doesn't occur to me to ask again, and instead I just walk along with little further thought.

We stop at a shop whose front opens right onto the street, and the gentleman wants to buy an unusual kind of candy that I've never seen before. It is some highly-processed, artificially flavored substance that comes in brightly colored plastic packages. The package can be activated in such a way that its contents will burst out like a foam snake. This is marketed to kids as a toy as well as a snack: they can have mock battles trying to hit one another with the candy snakes, then eat them afterwad. The girl minding the shop explains this to me while showing her a green stain spot on her T-shirt from where one of the candies had landed on her. So they stain clothes, too? I look down and am glad to see that I'm wearing something casual.

FA, "Let the Right One In": I wake up and get out of bed to record the dream. I don't notice anything unusual as I'm walking across the house, but pause in confusion as I go to sit down at my computer. Where's my chair? Why would my chair be gone? Surely I'm not dreaming? At first it feels improbable but gradually I realize that I am. Interesting... well, I want to explore this, but I don't want to lose my memory of the previous dream. It is still clear in mind, so I review the events and even recite a list of key words aloud to help fix my impressions. Then I look around to see what this new dream has to offer.

In contrast to the relative normality of the house, correct in layout but more sparsely furnished than normal, the view outside is catastrophic and extraordinary. A wide frozen river of swelling ice is flowing motionlessly where my patio should be, and cascading down toward the city in the distance. Just beyond it looms a mountain of pure white ice, with a matte, knobbly texture like that reminds me of spray-on styrofoam. Craning my head up, I can just see the narrow peak glittering in the sun. Everything looks incredibly clear and vivid, beautiful and frozen but apocalyptic.

The landscape is packed with people, whose clothes provide little patches of bright color. Bodies are frozen into the river and wander in groups along its banks. The only place free of people is the slopes of the ice mountain, steep and white and pristine. As I turn my gaze from the east, where I saw the river and mountain, to the south, the view becomes more grim. A whole crowd of people outside presses right up against the glass wall of my house, looking longingly inside, their bodies almost grey with cold and frost. I feel compassion for their plight, but I'm not sure what to do about it. My house is not big enough to accommodate even a fraction of the throngs who want to get in.

The people on the left, closer to the river, were all standing very still, but as I continue along the wall to the right, the people on this side are becoming more restless, with a few actively trying to break in. Some are attempting to cut holes in the glass. I wonder how long before they'll get through, and realize that I might need to start warding the walls against them. Then I see a segment of glass fall in, and realize that one woman has just succeeded in making a hole. It is about three feet high and a foot or so wide, in the shape of a narrow heart or mitten. Before she can slip through, I aim my flat palms toward the gap and begin to refreeze the glass (I don't seem to be distinguishing between ice and glass here). After a thin layer of glass or ice manifests over the hole, I pick up the piece that was removed and put it back in place, willing the gaps to fill in.

As I continue along the wall, the situation is getting even worse. There are already more holes. In fact, one woman has just crawled inside. I pick her up like a manniquin to remove her. The crowd is too think to restore her to ground level, so I toss her on top of the others... she can crowd-surf.

I come face to face with another woman who has made a hole in the glass. "You're not real, you're not real," I protest against her attempted incursion. It occurs to me that I should respond to her vaguely threatening presence with kindness. I embrace her and kiss her on the mouth, but she is oddly inert. It's like kissing a doll. I have nothing but a faint impression of staring blue eyes... blank eyes. "You're not real. Do you understand that? The reality of you is that you're not real."

She remains stiff and unresponsive, but doesn't back down, so I try an alternate tack. If she wants to get in the house so badly, then I will welcome her. I grab her arm and start tugging her inside. At this she actually resists, telling a woman standing near her outside, "Don't let go of my arm."

This is an interesting development. "Don't you want to come in?" I taunt. "A minute ago you were clamoring to come in." The dream ends.

I am in a dark house with old dusty furniture. I am in the living room I think and I fall into a hole in the floor to the basement. It is dark beyond where the light from the level above comes through the hole but I can see rows of pillars or something. At the back there is something moving. I can hear it and barely see, but it is definately not human. It suddenly produces a small light source like a tiny pen light or something. I can see the light searching the walls and floors like it is looking for something. I get very scared and climb a thin water pipe back up into the living room. I am terrified of being found by anyone, especially by that thing in the basement.

This kid of no particular gender has just gotten a lift to a particular town, saying "Here's fine," to the person who gave them a ride. They walk into a diner. As they walk up to the counter I'm thinking how feminine they look, in contrast to some previous appearance. They know the waitress, and they greet her in a familiar way; the waitress looks them over but doesn't recognize them and asks if she should know them. They say no. They're happy that she didn't recognize them even after they sort of clued her in that she should.

As they leave the diner, they pass their father coming in. Their father doesn't recognize them either. He mistakes them for being part of some group of out-of-towners who are currently passing through, people he resents, and he complains about that to the waitress when he gets to the counter. The waitress asks if he knew that person leaving, he says no. The waitress says it looks like they knew him - they're still standing outside, looking through the window, staring at the back of his head right now.

Outside, the kid walks past a car. The two guys in the car say something to each other about how that person's too pretty for their own safety, and needs someone to ugly them up a bit - a threat.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's a man I'm meant to capture - I'm holding a small box which I'm meant to store him in. He's trying to convince me to turn against the people I'm working for, the Head Office. He mentions that they put him in a 7-color-prison - a shield of a particular 'color' prevents the power used by that 'color' from passing through; a 7-color-prison would normally be considered overkill. He mentions this as part of describing to me the cruel way he was treated by the Head Office, trying to convince me that they have to be stopped. But it has the opposite effect; I believe that if he was judged so dangerous as to require a 7-color-prison, I can't trust his words. I put him in the box. His sister was watching this whole thing, but although she's upset there's nothing she can do to stop me - she's an innocent, she's got no power of her own. I hand over the box to a guy from the Head Office who's waiting outside - he's new, young, and looks afraid of the box even as he takes it.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've walked into a bath house. This place belongs to a group that I think of with a word that at the time I believed meant the young men of the city protected by Apollo (but the word I actually used was 'lemures,' the restless dead). It's empty and unused, and there are exposed pipes that are turning black. As I look around, I think that this explains the abandoned building next door.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's this kid, high school age, who set out to change himself, improve himself somehow, and I - as a disembodied voice - am asking him what his goal had been when he'd started. He'd wanted to be able to take care of his aging father. He's lost track of that along the way.

The scene changes from a hill outdoors to a classroom - he's popular, admired. This is a recent development, one of the things he's changed about himself. But he doesn't seem happy with the people around him - he seems arrogant, he looks down on them. And he forgets to spend time with his father. I see him with his father at a small table - they joke around with each other and talk the way people who are close sometimes do, with so many in-jokes and understood references to past events that it's effectively their own language. His father doesn't mind that he's so busy. But the kid recognizes that he's lost track of his original goal, and he has to correct his course. He goes to the house that he's been using to change himself, a place that grants wishes of a sort.

Inside the house, which is a Victorian, old and mostly empty except for portraits on the walls, he's greeted by three men. The one who talks to him is short, maybe 5 feet at the most, plain, and with curly red hair. The men ask him to stay and eat and drink himself into a coma with them again. He refuses. They say it's better than the alternative, but let him go on up the stairs. Every time he's come here to change himself, he's had to go a little deeper into this house. The first time, eating and drinking with them was enough.

Upstairs, a creature with a helmet that hides its face and with long metal hooks for hands emerges from the wall. The kid's met this creature before too, and knows how to deal with it. There's a sequence where I see various creatures and people emerge from the wall one by one, and it's implied that the kid deals with each of them in turn, but there's no need to actually watch the process play out since this has all happened before, and how to deal with each one of them is already known. The last one to emerge from the wall is a dashing man, blonde, cheerful, sort of an Errol Flynn-type character, as if he's just stepped out of a swashbuckling flick. They've met before, and they talk for a bit. This man will go up the next set of stairs on the kid's behalf, and arrange for him to get his wish. Other people have done this for the kid before, a different person every time he's visited this place.

My point of view switches to follow the Errol Flynn-type at this point while the kid stays downstairs. In the room at the top of the stairs is a portrait of a little girl - the kid's met her before. The two of them talk, and she emerges from the portrait. Long straight dark hair, a long white dress, and pink satin slippers with rosebuds. She quickly drops the personality that the kid would have been familiar with, and the Errol Flynn-type winds up on the floor in front of her, kissing her feet - fear, not devotion. She states that she collects "shades of the Ampha Berra family" - she opens a panel in her dress, displaying many different shades of bloodstains on the fabric underneath. The Errol Flynn-type won't survive, and she'll change the kid as he asked.

Dream Fragment: Me and a group of people are crowed around in a spot in the middle of the street. The people are all from different eras. They are all bickering about what the actual name of this town is. They all have been calling it different things, and I wonder why we are all from different time periods.

I'm in a house which contains a dollhouse which is an exact model of the house, even containing a miniature version of the dollhouse itself, which in turn is a perfect model with its own miniature dollhouse inside, and so on; the dream camera zooms in through what seems to be an infinite series of nested houses, and I say "It's recursive."

Inside one of these levels of houses, I can hear a woman's voice singing, not a recording or anything professional, it's the way someone might sing to themselves around the house, going "la la la" instead of words. I'm in a hall, passing by a woman's bedroom where there are a few cardboard boxes open on the floor, one with old Victorian clothes spilling out, and a mirror in a gold frame. The mirror catches my attention and I go lucid. I'd been thinking earlier (while awake) that mirrors are often linked with magic and summoning in my dreams and I'd intended to try using that deliberately the next time I had a lucid dream, so I look at this one now and try to summon Julia, who I'd expect to be the easiest character for my mind to summon. After a moment I see a woman moving in the mirror in the distance, too far away to see much, but it's not Julia. I start to try again with a slightly different approach, but then think that I'm a little too close to waking up for this. I lose visuals.

I 'wake up' in bed and reach for a pen to jot this down, but I drop it and have to get out of bed to look for it. I'm irritated by this, thinking I'm going to forget the dream - then I wake up again.

I'm in a mall with two people, some man and some woman. I see people being cleared out of the mall and everyone is panicking. Then the entire power grid goes down, and everyone is out of the building, but a security guard is skimming the area for people, me and the guy and girl decide to hide for some reason, we don't really have a plan, we just instinctively hide. Then we hear all the door getting locked up. The man walks off into a nearby store, and the girl and I start walking and you can see these victorian dresses in nearly all of the stores windows. She's swooning over different one's, I don;t care but point one out to her anyways, then she asks me to go get it for her, I tell her to go get it herself so she does. Then I feel a wall hit me from behind and I turn around and realize it's the end of the mall. I become overwhelmed with panic that it's almost too late and that I was supposed to grab something but I don't like anything there so I grab what looks like a black button up but when I turn it around it turns into a dress so I through it down and feel time counting down and I grab for this shirt up high but some man blocks me and stops me, and then we run but they get away without me and I'm stuck in a dark store.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #180: The Dome of Stars

I have a false awakening in my house where I’m trying to do something as quickly as possible. What is it? Oh right -- I’m trying to get out because I’m having a lucid dream.

I move through the rooms as quickly as I can. The layout is similar, but just different enough to throw me off. I wind up in the garage and there’s a new hallway off of the south wall that wasn’t there before. I follow the hallway into what appears to be a bordello. Five or six women who look like Victorian-era prostitutes are standing or sitting near a set of mirrors. One of the seated women is reading a magazine, a couple of them are applying make-up, and some are just standing around not doing much of anything.

I feel like this is one of those LD scenarios where you’re supposed to be thinking sexy thoughts but the women mostly just seem like they’re relaxing on break. I really don’t feel like bothering them. I start asking them something about why they’re running the bordello in my house, but they start moving around and the scene feels a little confusing. I go ahead and phase out through the wall to clear my head.

Now I’m out on the street. Across the street I see a man standing under the branches of an oak. He looks Hawaiian, heavy-set with a salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. I remember the Task of the Month, and approach him asking, “What’s your New Year’s Resolution?”

He’s incredibly eager to answer, and a smile spreads across his face. “To make the most of things, <something something>, and…” He grabs one of my hands in both of his and finished triumphantly: “To cook with more cinnamon!”

His enthusiasm is contagious and I joyously shout, “Thank you for that great answer!” I pause for a moment. “But could you repeat that part in the middle?” He doesn’t seem interested in doing this, though, and wanders away.

Task done, now I just feel like exploring. I fly up past the top of the tree, reminding myself that “The world is yours…” I move up past the treetops and look out at the stars. It’s a beautiful night and I take a moment to enjoy the unfamiliar constellations. I notice one set of stars is exactly the same as a set in a different part of the sky. I laugh at my brain taking this “shortcut”. But then I wonder… did it only do this because I expect it to?

I fly up higher and higher until I can see that the sky is curving above me. In fact, there is no limitless sky but rather just a huge dome that I can reach the top of if I just fly high enough.

And I do! When I reach the very top of the dome, I see a small, glowing control panel! There’s a single flashing green button sitting there at the top of this dome of stars. But as I reach for it, I start losing altitude. I tell myself that “this is all mine” but I can’t shake the notion that I’m just not going to be able to reach that button to find out what it does. I reach up and up, trying to reach it, but the dream fades.

Original journal entry dated Sept. 10, 2002:

First part is unrelated to the second, they just kinda faded into each other - I was with my family, only it was with my uncle I's extended family. My brother was there, but in the dream he was a little sister instead of a little brother. I dreamt we needed gas, but first we stopped at this one restaurant, and there were lots of badgers inside, and I talked to a waitress who was a friend of my mom's, she was complaining about her hours. Then I went with my family, we needed to get gas, for some reason they were filling up cereal boxes with it and carting them around, I told them this was really really stupid and they told me to either shut up or walk, so I got out of the car and started screaming at them and threw my box away, and made my brother/sister get out too. Then their car blew up. And Melissa Etheridge, in the guise of Alice from The Brady Bunch, came and saved everybody and gave my brother and I a ride home in her truck.

Ok, it's funny when I write it down, but in the dream I was very, very angry and upset and screaming at the top of my lungs. I hope I wasn't yelling in my sleep again.

There was a vaguer dream slightly beforehand but I don't know if it belongs with the one I'm about to describe. It was... sky-rides. You know, like the buckets that go along those lines, between the poles, and people sit in them... sort of... yeah, me and mom and my aunt and uncle were riding those, I think it was on the way to the tour... they were almost like a monorail but hung upside down on the line and they were open to the air.

Then the nightmare, less angry and family-oriented and far more creepy. I had a dream that mom and her friend, for whatever stupid reason they had, decided to go on this one tour with my uncle K and aunt L. It was through something called "The Basement", a really big haunted region, and it was supposed to be this awesome, scary tour, with the catch that all of the haunted stuff was real. Actually, "The Basement" was only a section of the total area, there were other places with names like "The Attic" and stuff, but I forgot the names, and they were pretty minor areas compared to The Basement anyway (it was the biggie). So we got split up from aunt and uncle and lost our tour group, and it was all grey and misty and totally deserted, and I was scared shitless. Mom told me that she went on the tour a long, long time ago with my dad and she didn't see any ghosts, really, except for one that bit her on the top of the head, except that was at the Carnival, which was a ways off. Lori Beth only seemed mildly disappointed that we hadn't seen anything so far. I was wishing that I could magically and instantly teleport right out of the place, since I was terrified and I hadn't even actually SEEN anything. Mom told me that if I got really scared I could go and find my uncle, since he was some sort of weird anti-ghost void type person (i.e. could repel ghosts). We were getting closer to this one old house type place and my mother's friend was debating whether or not we should go inside. I personally didn't want to go anywhere, much less any place that looked that ominous. It wasn't the usual Victorian mansion, more like an old farmhouse but a very large one that a richer family would own (like a plantation house only not so, you know, Southern or elaborate).

Then I woke up absolutely terrified